taxis

[Dave Monroe]

taxis

PRONUNCIATION:
(TAK-sis) plural taxes (TAK-seez)

MEANING:
noun:
1. Movement of an organism towards or away from a stimulus.
2. Order, arrangement, or classification.
3. The manual repositioning of a displaced body part to its normal
position, in a case of hernia, for example.

ETYMOLOGY:
>From Greek taxis (arrangement, order), from tassein (to arrange).

NOTES:
1. The word tropism is usually applied to plants. 2. The word for a
public vehicle, taxi, is unrelated. A taxi is one which taxes,
etymologically speaking. It's short for taximeter, the name of the
device that calculates the fare. 3. Also see parataxis.

USAGE:
"I believe every action an insect makes is due to a reflex, a taxis or
a tropism."
Poppy Adams; The Sister; Anchor; 2009.

"Dionysius wanted to see the entire cosmos as a taxis, in the sense of
a hierarchy."
James H. Charlesworth; Jesus and Archaeology; Wm. B. Eerdmans; 2006.

http://wordsmith.org/words/taxis.html